Nariman Point, version 2.0

Business district revival plans include promenade, 50,000 sq m park, waterfront space and food courts.

If things go to plan, by 2013, you could walk from Nariman Point to Churchgate station on a promenade resembling the celebrated Champs-Elysées in Paris.

HT Image

And that’s just part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority’s (MMRDA) Rs 3,500-crore plans for the transformation of Nariman Point, the city’s first business district, and India’s most expensive piece of real estate.

The plan’s other components — spread over 180 hectares — include a 50,000 sq m park, a new business building to match the scale of the Gateway of India, shopping complexes and a waterfront area.

MMRDA got the mandate for the project last month. “The basic thrust of this project is to revitalise this area. We want to project Nariman Point as an international business district,” MMRDA Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad said.

Going by initial plans drafted by project architect P.K. Das, the central avenue will be an exclusively pedestrian zone stretching from Nariman Point to the park at the Churchgate end.

“On either end of the central avenue we are planning two iconic buildings — a “business gateway” similar to the Gateway of India at one end, and another building called the “Monument” at the other end,” Gaikwad added.

MMRDA has also sought permission from the state for a 100-plus storey skyscraper, which it hopes will be the tallest in the world.

Sources say MMRDA is also keen on taking up the Mantralaya Redevelopment Project, which will include tearing down the main Mantralaya building, its administrative block, and its 50 row-house offices to make way for a new set of buildings.

The catch is that Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal wants to keep the Mantralaya Redevelopment Project with the Public Works Department, which he controls. “Our present ambit does not contain the Mantralaya Redevelopment Work.

We will only improve areas around Mantralaya,” Gaikwad added. Even leaving aside the Mantralaya project, MMRDA needs access to a lot of PWD land even for the Nariman Point redevelopment — and Bhujbal is not willing to part with that land.